Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
11
Image Regis
tration in Nuclear Medicine
Dale L. Bailey
CONTENTS
11.1 Introduction ................................................................................................ 233
11.2 Early Uses of Image Registration in Nuclear Medicine ....................... 234
11.3 Spatial Registration of Nuclear Medicine Images ................................. 235
11.4 Image Registration for Correction of Nuclear Medicine
Emission Data ............................................................................................. 239
11.4.1 Scatter and Attenuation Correction............................................. 240
11.4.2 Partial Volume Correction ............................................................ 242
11.4.3 Anatomically Guided Reconstruction......................................... 243
11.5 Spatial Normalization ............................................................................... 244
11.6 Conclusions and Future Directions ......................................................... 247
Acknowledgment................................................................................................ 248
References ............................................................................................. 248
11.1
Introduction
Nuclear medicine is a functional imaging modality. It uses radionuclides
labeled to target molecules, or
radiotracers
, for diagnostic studies and for
delivering
radiation therapy. The biodistribution of a radiotracer in the
body depends on the delivery to and functional uptake by the organ or path-
way under examination. The great advantage of nuclear medicine lies in the
premise that functional changes precede anatomical changes in all cases
apart from trauma. Thus, appropriate radiotracers are able to demonstrate
changes due to disease long before there are macroscopic manifestations.
Phelps and Coleman
in vivo
1
recently characterized the fundamental principles of
diagnostic nuclear medicine as:
•
The development and use of radiolabeled molecules to image or
measure the molecular basis of disease for early detection, accurate
